


Maybe This Time

by saccharineSylph



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Stolen Century, mushrooms probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saccharineSylph/pseuds/saccharineSylph
Summary: A 6am drabble that got away from me. Working title was "sometimes I gotta do this shit myself"- Set during Episode 61 as a detail of what "they took it pretty hard" meant after Magnus' temporary temporal death. Mostly angled from Lup's perspective. Not a shipping fic but everyone loves each other because everyone is family.





	Maybe This Time

The campfire the night before had been filled with stories and songs, muffled behind thick filtering masks. Lup remembered it was made all the better by Magnus, who joined them after several nights away. He’d been sleeping more, doing his best to work off the poisonous spores he’d breathed in. It was stupid. He was stupid. Every single person on this exhibition had ribbed him more than once; who takes off an oxygen mask to eat candy?

He later told you after months and months of stale, recycled air, he was desperate to eat something sweet. Apparently the need for a taste of home disguised in watermelon-flavored candy overrode his logic, which was shifty on the best of days.

Yet there he was, rose back in his fuzzy cheeks, arm around Lucretia as she scribbled the folklore swirling over the fire. His laugh echoed through the mask and even the Captain’s pinched, anxious shoulders had slouched a little. Maybe, maybe they’d all get out of this one. Maybe they’d fix it this time. Barry stretched his legs to reach the fireside, his mind for once not running a million miles an hour. He even leaned his head on Lup and listened for awhile.

Lup had magicked a canopy over their camp, and the rain pattered on it in soothing rhythms, sliding down like droplets on glass. Barry had fallen asleep some time ago, and so had Lucretia, curled slightly in the curve of Magnus’ side. He was as bright as ever, full of energy, full of crooked smiles and animal tales. It was really a wonder Lucretia slept at all, but they all needed sleep so badly these days. Lup stirred the man slumped on her and relieved Magnus, scooping their industrious scribe in the crook of her arms. Long after the firelight drifted away from their rain-slicked tents, she could still hear his voice, stable and strong.

\--

Morning came, or what amounted to morning on this plane. The thick caps of the mushrooms drowned out most of the light, spare what little the fungi produced themselves. The camp was stirring, and Lup found herself awake, the little nest beside her where Lucretia had been empty. By now of course she was probably up in the quiet of the dawn, cataloguing sunlight and star patterns.

Barry too was up and about, bless him. Triangulating the last known reading from the Light of Creation with his maps and instruments, covered in careful notes. The Captain was helping break down camp, organizing the scorch team’s equipment, checking for flaws. Of course Magnus was still asleep. Comparisons to him hibernating like a bear hadn’t gone unheard. When Lup crawled her way out of the tent and shook her hair, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

While she had been separated from her twin for almost three months now, there was still the lingering expectation that Taako would tumble out after her in his cocoon of blankets, complaining about something or another. Of all the things she had left behind, of all the things this mission had taken from her, she missed her brother’s closeness the most. Ah, well, next cycle, they’ll stick together again.

Lup prayed there wouldn’t be another cycle.

“Lup, can you go kick Magnus awake?” Barry asked, not looking up from his notes, “This is getting ridiculous.”

“We need to break down the tent and get moving,” the Captain said, ever in charge.

“Why do I gotta do it?” Lup only whined a little, clambering through the heavy tent flaps.

She sighed at the lump of a man, bundled up on his side, armor still piled at his feet. He wasn’t even dressed yet, feigning sleep. She flopped down fearlessly by him, gave one scarred arm a good shaking.

“C’mon, my guy. Up you go, Capn’port’ll kill us. Come on.”

Elves weren’t known to be terribly warm-blooded, but when she touched Magnus’ arm, a shiver ran up her spine. Lup turned him onto his back, smeared hair from his face, stroked his neck, searching.

It took ten minutes before Barry finally came in after the sound of her sobs bled through the rain.

\--

Lucretia took the useless mask away, righted his clothing and hair. Barry and the Captain spoke softly, trying to rationalize this. This death, when he had been so well and hale the night before.

It’s not uncommon to rally, someone said, it wouldn’t have been painful, said another.

Oh, but Magnus had known pain. He had died in at least four grizzly ways she had witnessed, and if she had to rate this one, she imagined quietly drifting off in sleep was probably a low ranking. But ranking it was absurd. It was stupid. He was stupid. All of this was so fucking stupid.

At some point in time Lup had drooped against Magnus’ still hand, so wrong and alien to not be grasping a weapon or the hand of an anxious child. The armor clattered as Barry gathered it up, distributed it to the villagers- how dare he? How dare they? No, of course. It was practical. Magnus would want this. He’d tell her so. Tell her in- in how many months now? How long had they been here? God, what year was it now?

The Captain advised against using Magnus’ clothes or blankets; the spores could’ve soaked through, he argued. Lucretia knelt down soundlessly beside Lup, slipped her arms around one of hers.

“Lup, he’s gone. We need to leave him.”

“I know,” she said.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. He’ll reset, just like before.”

“With his black eye and everything.”

“That’s right.”

Lucretia’s words were clinical, clean and cold, her eyes were clear, mouth a smooth line. Barry didn’t meet her eyes, grappling the task at hand. Lup knew the Captain would need her full attention on the mission soon. The mission. She raked the tears off her face with her fingers, face scrunched up into ugly shapes.

“This is bullshit,” She choked, “This is such bullshit. It’s stupid.”

“No,” Lucretia said simply, “It isn’t.”

She didn’t elaborate, but her fingers carefully rested Magnus’ hands together, draped his closed face with his jacket.

“None of this is bullshit,” Lucretia told Lup, “If it were, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Now she rose to her feet, catching Lup’s elbow to pull her up beside her. Barry drifted to her other side, coordinates in hand.

“C’mon, Lup. C’mon.”

Lup didn’t look over her shoulder. She didn’t want to see them leaving Magnus behind, like so many shrinking planets in the window of a ship, consumed by darkness.

When they found the Light of Creation, Lup carried it on her lap, warm and bright as a little star. It didn’t have a tangible shape, not really. She couldn’t quite pass her hands through it, but couldn’t discern any sort of form other than the light peeking through her fingers. They all took turns holding it, taking notes for Taako’s special project. Lucretia filled two tomes on it alone, holding it in the cup of one hand like an apple, or some kind of delicate animal. Even Davenport, familiar with their ship’s drive, turned it in his hands like a wonder. Barry was the one who brought it to Lup, wrapped her arms around its light like a comfort, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

The ride back was silent save for the whirring of the engine, soft and spinning like a white halo.

\--

It was morning again when the ship came to rest at their little homestead in Fungston. The pretty chapel with its glowing buttresses and brightly lit windows sat in the center of town, and children ran from its doors to greet the ship. The adults were slower, more cautious, but it was easy to make out Merle’s bright red robe in their dull garments. He shepherded children with gentle hands, waddling as quickly as his legs could carry him. The Captain disembarked first, holding their prize, the Light of Creation, over his head to thunderous cheers.

Always last to the party, Lup saw her brother amble out of a workshop, slouching like a badly-strung doll, arms crossed loosely. Even with a mask on it was easy to picture his smile, gap-toothed and wry.

“Hey there Lu. Where’s Magdaddy gone off to?”

Barry shook his head. The Captain took off his hat. Lucretia demurely turned her eyes to the ground, hands folded respectfully. Merle was the first to understand, and offered a prayer aloud, somewhere between a curse and a lament.

In two steps, Taako had crossed the divide between he and his sister. Their arms crashed into each other like two lost puzzle pieces, and they hugged until their bones creaked from the strain. Her face pressed into his throat, his into the pile of her hair. His fingers crept up the back of her neck, and she idly pounded his back with her fists.

“I know,” he said, “I know. It’s shit.”

“It’s not. It’s not fucking bullshit.” She hissed.

“It’s the worst fucking bullshit then.” He agreed.

She couldn’t bring herself to argue with her brother about what Lucretia had proven with a handful of words. Taako mopped her face- and his own- with a mascara-stained sleeve. He swayed in place, a habit picked up a long time ago to mimic the gentle rumbling of the caravan.

Lup drew up on herself, harnessing what strength she had left burning within her.

\--

Below the world shook, snapping the stalks of mushrooms the size of buildings, crumbling the earth below. The Hunger coursed through the planet like a black flood, bioluminescent lights winking out as they were extinguished. The Starblaster groaned as it tore away from the heavy gravity, pressed to the limits of its engine by Captain Davenport.

Lup promised to always watch their departure, watch the plane fade and darken beneath them. The Light of Creation sat beside the Captain as if it were just along for an exciting ride, filling the deck with warmth unsuited for this level of destruction. Briefly Lup felt Taako’s hand brush hers, felt Barry’s arm slip around her as their bodies began that unsettling reshuffle.

It was disconcerting at best and actively uncomfortable at worst, feeling your very atoms rearranged and stitched back together. Once the dizziness passed, everyone stood in their recorded states. Everyone, including Merle, who had stayed behind to comfort his flock. Including Magnus, standing there with his black eye and a befuddled expression.

To be fair, being dead for four months was probably jarring.

To everyone’s surprise it’s Lucretia who moves first, crossing to Merle and speaking softly. In a heartbeat she’s by Magnus, touching his arm uncertainly. Barry moves next, clapping a hug around the big man.

“Good to see you, guy.”

“Yeah, man, that sucked,” Magnus groaned, stretching his unfamiliar body like freshly washed clothing.

Even Davenport put the ship on auto for a moment, came to squeeze Magnus’ shoulder, consoled Merle. Taako sauntered over to Magnus and gave him a righteous slap on the side of the head that made an audible clap.

“You gotta stop doing this, dumbfuck,” he said, “Seriously.”

Lup felt her feet lift before she had much say in the matter, and before she was quite aware of herself her fist collided with Magnus’ face.

“That sums it up, probably,” Merle said.

The punch dissolved into battering him uselessly with the sides of her fists, like trying to take down a tree with just bare hands. For all of him, Magnus laughed, he laughed, that asshole, and he took Lup’s hands, carefully steered them away.

And that was that. A reassuring hug, a muss of her hair and then Magnus strode to the bridge, plotting their next course of action. Taako eyed her, came close, rested his chin on her shoulder.   
“We’ll be okay, right Lulu?”

“Yeah, psh. We’ll be fine.”

Still, she was grateful to squeeze her twin’s hand for a moment, huddle with Barry while the new plane spread out beneath them. They’d be fine. They’d always be fine, if they got to the ship. But how many people would have felt that grief? How many people would be left behind? How many had they already lost? Next time, she thought, next time they’d get it right. 

Next time, everyone would be fine.


End file.
